The Cold Six Thousand

by James Ellroy

The story begins on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, minutes after the Mafia lawyer, arrives in Dallas with Las Vegas operations. Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a US Army veteran and Las Vegas Police Department officer, is paid six thousand dollars to fly to Dallas and murder Wendell Durfee, a black pimp who has offended the casinos, and is thus thrust into the assassination's aftermath. As the tension over race relations and the Vietnam War builds and explodes throughout the decade, all three become involved in plots to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.